DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims status
No claims are amended.
Claims 1-19 are pending for examination
Response to arguments
Re: 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection
Applicant’s arguments, received on 11/29/2025, have been fully considered. Applicant’s arguments and examiner’s response to the arguments are provided below.
Applicant argues: (Pgs. 12-13 of applicant’s arguments) “Applicant also submits that Xu fails to disclose wherein a wake-up sequence of the wake-up signal is mapped in the time and/or frequency domain to symbols reserved for an automatic gain control or a hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ, feedback, or is mapped in the time and/or frequency domain to control or data symbols, or is aligned in the time and/or frequency domain aligned with a synchronization signal.
Specifically, Xu does not describe a mapping at all and does not even contain the word "mapping" or "mapped"”.
Examiner’s response: Examiner respectfully disagrees. Disclosure in Xu shows, as cited in the office action, DRX is configured through PSCCH. When some configuration is sent in a control channel, the mapping is implied, and inclusion of the explicit citation of the word “mapping” is not necessary.
Applicant argues: (Pg. 13 of applicant’s arguments) “And certainly, Xu does not describe that a wake-up sequence of the wake-up signal is mapped in the time and/or frequency domain to control or data symbols, as alleged in the Office Action. Quite the contrary, paragraph [0021] of Xu explicitly states that the purpose of power saving is achieved by intermittently stopping detection of the PSCCH. Clearly, mapping a wakeup sequence in the time and/or frequency domain to control or data symbols is in stark contradiction to Xu, that teaches stopping detection of the PSCCH”.
Examiner’s response: Examiner respectfully disagrees. As disclosed in Xu, it does not disclose stopping detection of PSCCH altogether. Xu teaches stopping the detection intermittently for the purpose of power saving and discloses in [0021], “the purpose of power saving is achieved by intermittently stopping detection of the PSCCH. For example, the determining unit 101 may determine an active time for the relay network node and/or the remote network node to detect the PSCCH and a sleep time for the relay network node and/or the remote network node not to detect the PSCCH”, by defining active time and a sleep time when the PSCCH is detected and a sleep time when it is not detected.
35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection is not withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-2, 5-6, 8-11, and 13-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Xu et al. (EP-3500028-A1), hereinafter “Xu”, in view of R1-2005896, “Sidelink enhancements for UE power saving”, source Intel, hereinafter “Intel”.
Claims 1, 10, 18, and 19:
Regarding claim 1, Xu teaches ‘a transceiver of a wireless communication system’, wherein the transceiver is configured to operate in a sidelink in-coverage, out of coverage or partial coverage scenario (Xu: [0020] “Figure 1 and Figure 2 is an example of the network control terminal, and the relay UE and the remote UE are examples of the relay network node and the remote network node, respectively. In addition, with respect to the position of a remote network node, there may also be different settings. For example, the remote network node may be located within the coverage range of a network control terminal, or may be located outside the coverage range.”), in which resources for a communication over the sidelink are (pre-)configured by the wireless communication system or allocated or scheduled autonomously by the transceiver (Xu: [0023] “he configuration of SL-DRX is performed by the electronic apparatus 100 of the network control terminal. For example, the electronic apparatus 100, and in particular the determining unit 101, can configure the SL-DRX for both the relay network node and the remote network node. Alternatively, the electronic apparatus 100 may only configure the SL-DRX for the relay network node, while the relay network node configures the SL-DRX for the remote network node.”),
wherein the transceiver is configured to receive over the sidelink a reception mode configuration signal from another transceiver of the wireless communication system (Xu: Fig.5 discloses mode 2 where the remote network node receives the SL-DRX configuration from the Relay network node), wherein the transceiver is configured to change a reception mode responsive to the reception of the reception mode configuration signal (Xu: [0013] “Figure 4 is a diagram showing an example of a relationship between respective timers of configuration of SL-DRX”; see also [0026-27]).
Xu however does not expressly disclose but in the same field of endeavor Intel teaches, wherein the reception mode configuration signal is a wake-up signal, wherein the transceiver is configured to switch, in response to the wake-up signal, into the normal reception mode (Intel: § 2.3.2 “by default UEs can operate in certain power saving state and monitor only small part of sidelink resources. Reception of wake up signal can switch UE to another state”; the default state may be considered as the normal reception mode.).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Intel with that of Xu and come up with the claimed invention motivated by disclosing more details regarding the change of mode/state after a wake-up signal is received.
Xu teaches, wherein a wake-up sequence of the wake-up signal
- is mapped in the time and/or frequency domain to symbols reserved for an automatic gain control or a hybrid automatic repeat request, HARQ, feedback,
- or is mapped in the time and/or frequency domain to control or data symbols,
- or is aligned in the time and/or frequency domain aligned with a synchronization signal (Xu: (0021] In the case that a sidelink is established between the relay network node and the remote network node, when the two perform relay communication, a PSCCH (physical sidelink control channel) will be transmitted to the counterpart, or a PSCCH will be received from the counterpart; PSCCH is for control signal, and thus the disclosure implied teaching of the claim element, a wake-up sequence of the wake-up signal is mapped in the time and/or frequency domain to control or data symbols.).
Claim 10 is for configuration transmitting side of the sidelink communication performing complimentary task performed by the receiving side (remote terminal). Claim elements are discussed above in claim 1.
Claim 18 is for method performed by the transceiver of claim 1 and Claim 19 is for method performed by transceiver of claim 10. These claims are change in category with respect to claims 1 and 10 respectively.
Regarding claim 2, combination of Xu and Intel teaches the transceiver according to claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the transceiver is configured to change the reception mode by switching, in dependence on the reception mode configuration signal, into one out of the following reception modes
- a discontinuous reception mode,
- a normal reception mode,
- a low-power reception mode,
- a sleep mode. (discussed above in claim 1; sleep mode is disclosed e.g., in “(0072] Accordingly, the determining unit 101 of the electronic apparatus 100 for the network control terminal may be
configured to schedule the general downlink transmission from the network control terminal to the relay network node according to the SL-DRX sleep indicator from the relay network node, where the SL-DRX sleep indicator indicates that the side link of the relay network node enters the sleep state.)
Regarding claim 5, combination of Xu and Intel teaches the transceiver according to claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the transceiver is configured to detect the wake-up signal continuously, or wherein the transceiver is configured to detect the wake-up signal in preconfigured slots or periods (Xu: [0106] “the determining unit 201 is further configured to reserve, for each remote network node, PSGCH sub-frames for continuous reception.”; “[0113] In order to ensure the accuracy and real-time of the SL-DRX, the relay network node needs to periodically update the timer of the SL-DRX with a plurality of remote network nodes.“).
Regarding claim 6, combination of Xu and Intel teaches the transceiver according to claim 1 (discussed above).
The claim, wherein the wake-up signal is a unicast, groupcast or broadcast wake-up signal is disclosed by Intel (Intel: § 2.3.2 “Power saving on sidelink can benefit from introduction of sidelink wake up signal (WUS), go-to-sleep (GTS), keep awake or keep sleep type of signals / triggers that may control amount of resources processed by UE for sidelink communication, i.e. reception and/or sidelink transmission as well as switching from full to partial sensing and vice versa … The signal can be especially beneficial in case of unicast and groupcast communication to facilitate management of power saving states within unicast pair or group of UEs.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Ericsson with that of the combination of Xu and Intel motivated by management of power saving states as disclosed above.
Regarding claim 8, combination of Xu and Intel teaches the transceiver according to claim 1 (discussed above),
wherein the transceiver is configured to receive from the other transceiver or a dedicated wake-up signal configuration transceiver a wake-up signal configuration message,
wherein the transceiver is configured to adjust at least one parameter of a wake-up signal reception configuration used for receiving the wake-up signal based on the wake-up signal configuration message, or
wherein the transceiver is configured to adjust at least one parameter of a wake-up signal reception configuration used for receiving the wake-up signal based on an area the transceiver is located, or
wherein the transceiver is configured to receive from a base station of the wireless communication systems a wake-up signal configuration message, wherein the transceiver is configured to adjust at least one parameter of a wake-up signal reception configuration used for receiving the wake-up signal based on the wake-up signal configuration message, is disclosed by Xu in the following, e.g.,
[0085] For example, the determining unit 201 may be configured to, if the receiving time windows of the DRX and SLDRX overlap, generate an adjusting indication for adjusting the configuration of the DRX or SL-DRX, to instruct the network control terminal or the other network node to adjust the configuration of the DRX or SL-DRX; see also the adjustment related disclosures in [0087-94].
Regarding claim 9, combination of Xu and Intel teaches the transceiver according to claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the transceiver is configured to transmit a wake-up signal configuration message to the other transceiver, the wake-up signal configuration message describing a wake-up signal configuration of the transceiver (Xu: Fig.5).
Claims 3-4, 7, and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over combination of Xu and Intel as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of R1-1902935, “Techniques for UE Power Saving”, source Ericsson, hereinafter “Ericsson”.
Regarding claim 3, combination of Xu and Intel teaches the transceiver according to claim 1 (discussed above).
Combination of Xu and Intel however does not expressly teach, but in the same field of endeavor Ericsson teaches, wherein the transceiver is configured to detect the wake-up signal using only a portion of its receiver chain, or wherein the transceiver is configured to detect the wake-up signal using a separate wake-up signal detector (§ 5 “For detection, UEs can again use simple linear correlator by performing correlation between received time-domain signal and a dedicated wake-up signal template which is known to the LIE (i.e. from the UE-specific sequence). Such a scheme can also facilitate the design of low-powered wake-up Receivers”; ” better detection and false alarm performance occurs for higher wakeup signal bandwidths. DCI-WUS and sequence-based WUS allow for the realization of low-powered wake-up receivers, whereby the detection of the wake-up signals is done using simple time-domain correlators”.).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Ericsson with that of the combination of Xu and Intel motivated by better detection and false alarm performance, as discussed above.
Regarding claim 4, combination of Xu and Intel teaches the transceiver according to claim 1 (discussed above).
The claim element, wherein the wake-up signal comprises a known sequence, though not expressly taught by combination of Xu and Intel but is disclosed by Ericsson (implied by disclosure in Ericsson, 5.1 “Sequence-based WUS with a sequence transmitted on PDCCH resources
o using sequences derived from length 31 Gold sequences as specified in [2], and by using C-RNTI in the sequence initializer and mapped to PDCCH resources.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine disclosure by Ericsson with that of the combination of Xu and Intel motivated by realization of low-power WUS receiver, as disclosed by Ericsson in § 5.1, “sequence-based WUS allow for the realization of low-powered wake-up receivers, whereby the detection of the wake-up signals is done using simple time-domain correlators.
Regarding claim 7, combination of Xu and Intel teaches the transceiver according to claim 1 (discussed above), wherein the wake-up signal addresses only the transceiver or a group of transceivers, wherein the transceiver is part of the group of transceivers (implied by discussion above in claim 3; with separate implementation of wake-up receiver and normal receiver, only transceivers designated for low power WUS will only be addressed.
Claims 11 and 13-17 are for transceiver of claim 10. Claim elements have been discussed above in claims 2-9. They are rejected based on rejection of claims 2-9.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 20210259042 A1 teaches discontinuous reception command over sidelink.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/INTEKHAAB A SIDDIQUEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462